1. Field
The present disclosure relates to a method for controlling a refrigerator.
2. Background
In general, refrigerators include a plurality of storage compartments, in which foods are accommodated for frozen or refrigerated storage and one side of which is opened to store the foods into the storage compartments and to take the foods out of the storage compartments. The plurality of storage compartments includes a freezing compartment for frozen storage of foods and a refrigerating compartment for refrigerated storage of foods.
In a refrigerator, a refrigeration system in which a refrigerant is circulated is operated. Apparatuses constituting the refrigeration system include a compressor, a condenser, an expander, and an evaporator. Cooling air generated from the evaporator may be supplied to the freezing compartment or the refrigerating compartment.
Refrigerators are continuously operating appliances which continue to operate once power cords thereof are plugged in, and may be electrical appliances which have relatively large power consumption among various kinds of electrical appliances. Thus, in recent years, a technology for predicting or measuring the power consumption of a refrigerator has been proposed to efficiently perform power management of refrigerators.
The present applicant has proposed a technology for predicting amounts of power consumption of electrical appliances and has filed a patent application as below.                1. Application No. (filing date): KR 10-2010-0058918 (Jun. 22, 2010)        2. Title of the invention: Network system.        
According to this related art, power consumption of an energy consumption unit constituting an electrical appliance may only be predicted by using an information value stored in a memory, but there is a limitation in performing an operation of substantially reducing power consumption while monitoring the operation state of the electrical appliance.